Kingfisher Airlines to fly higher with JWT

When all other airlines are dealing with the steep increases in fuel surcharge, Kingfisher Airlines is focusing on business as usual. The Vijay Mallya-owned airline is spreading its wings to encompass the world.

Kingfisher Airlines will soon be flying international and has chosen JWT to handle the creative duties globally. The size of the business is estimated to be Rs 80 crore. About a month ago, afaqs! had reported that Kingfisher Airlines was scouting for a creative partner.

Dhunji S Wadia, managing partner, JWT, confirmed the news to afaqs!

JWT won the multi-agency pitch, in which other network agencies—DraftFCB Ulka and Bates 141—also participated. Equus Red Cell, which handled the creative duties prior to this appointment, was also invited to make presentations.

Though he says, “All presentations by the participating agencies were great, but it was the phenomenal resources that JWT put behind Kingfisher that nailed it for them.”

In 2007, Kingfisher Airlines bought majority stake in the Captain Gopinath-owned Air Deccan. The latter was then renamed Simplifly Deccan, the creative duties for which were awarded to Rediffusion DY&R. The media duties for Kingfisher and Simplifly Deccan are handled by GroupM.

The Kingfisher-Deccan merger was recently approved by the Karnataka high court. According to earlier media reports, this merger would enable Kingfisher to fly overseas, but only after it complies with a few regulatory procedures. Kingfisher Airlines’ planned international destinations include North America, the UK, parts of Europe, Southeast Asia and West Asia. The communication will roll out in line with the airline going international.

The marketing function for Kingfisher’s global business will operate from Mumbai.

Another Domestic Airline which started flying international recently is Jet Airways. It has awarded its global creative duties to IPG. So the business in India will be handled by Altitude, which is a special unit under McCann Worldgroup.